Quotes About Progress

The Golden Light that will be diffused throughout all the happy world from the rays of the risen sun of Socialism.

Some of the ceilings and walls were so cracked and broken that they had to be replastered. Openings were cut through walls and doors were being put where no doors had been before. Old broken chimney pots were being taken down and new ones were being taken up and fixed in their

Two pairs of steps, laid parallel on their sides at a distance

A successful society is characterized by a rising living standard for its population, increasing investment in factories and basic infrastructure, and the generation of additional surplus, which is invested in generating new discoveries in science and technology.

Regression is defined here as a psychological retreat to a prior stage of development in order to reduce fear and foster an illusion of security.

This book seeks to foster that progress by identifying a place of reconciliation between the two poles outlined in the exchange between Paul Mason (whose optimism we relish) and Nigel Pollitt (whose realism we value) within a society that has already changed radically. We

Starting now and lasting until forever, your health and healthcare will be determined, to a remarkable and somewhat disquieting degree, by how well the technology works.

In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last. —Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford (1717–1797)

if Watson is going to replace any physicians, it will likely be at the low end of complexity—for

it is this integration between the worlds of the patient and the clinician that carries the most promise.

If you do a single thing—and especially if there is a lot of money in that single thing—you should put a 'Welcome, Robots!' doormat outside your office," wrote technology expert Farhad Manjoo in Slate. "They're coming for you.

I hate the goddamn system, but until someone comes along with some changes that make sense, I'll stick with it. —Clint Eastwood as "Dirty Harry," Magnum Force, 1973

there is no guarantee that the time freed up by our newfound technological efficiencies will be made available for the human touch. A look at the modern history of industrial computerization would have one lay odds that this squishy stuff will be precisely what is sacrificed on the altar of productivity, particularly once every word, touch, and minute is measured, analyzed, and priced out.

May this not be a moment, but a movement.

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. –Victor Hugo T

We are designed to feel that the next great goal will bring bliss, and the bliss is designed to evaporate shortly after we get there. Natural selection has a malicious sense of humor; it leads us along with a series of promises and then keeps saying "Just kidding.

various people had long had the feeling that gain through pain was nature's way

Natural selection is an inanimate process, devoid of consciousness, yet is a tireless refiner, an ingenious craftsman.

I]f it be any part of religion to believe that man was made by a good Being, it is more consistent with that faith to believe, that this Being gave all human faculties that they might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed, and that he takes delight in every nearer approach made by his creatures to the ideal conception embodied in them, every increase in any of their capabilities of comprehension, of action, or of enjoyment.

Dalai Lama has said, "Don't try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a better Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are.

natural selection doesn't even care about our short-term happiness.

Quizá la mejor manera de decirlo sea que la iluminación y la liberación se refuerzan mutuamente: cuantas más cosas que nos liberan del sufrimiento hacemos, más clara es nuestra visión, y cuanto más clara sea nuestra visión, más fácil nos resultará hacer las cosas que nos conducen a la liberación del sufrimiento, lo cual, a su vez, nos permitirá tener aún más claridad de visión, y así sucesivamente.

Religion is a feature of cultural evolution that, among other things, addresses anxieties created by cultural evolution; it helps keep social change safe from itself.

Natural selection doesn't "want" us to be happy, after all; it just "wants" us to be productive, in its narrow sense of productive.